Advice from an Engineer, Landscape Architect

I had the opportunity to speak with an Engineer about the Rain Barrels and the problem with one not draining. The great thing about speaking to another person when working on a project is that they help you see the things that are already right in front of you. The great thing about talking with an experienced professional Engineer is that they know stuff I don’t know. Like how a few inches can make a big difference.

The Engineer explained to me that the height of the Rain Barrel above the ground, which is where the water outlet is – the soaker hose, can make all the difference in the water’s drainage rate. Soaker hoses require pressure to operate well and at the height at which my rain barrel sat, that water wasn’t going to go anywhere.

Those of you who read my second entry (Set up a Rain Barrel in three easy steps, Oct 8, 2009) will recall that I began with the Rain Barrel sitting on three stone pavers at approximately nine inches above the ground. When I finished the project, I left the barrel sitting on one paver, about three inches above the ground – an obvious difference that I consciously changed not knowing it would have such an effect (see the fourth entry, Waterclogged, Oct 9, 2009). Knowing that Soaker Hoses can be temperamental, and that they require pressure to push the water through, I intend to build a tall riser made of wood for this barrel.

An alternative would be to allow all the rain from this (north) side of the roof to travel through the downspout, across a constructed runnel, to the Rain Garden in the front yard, and completely eliminate the use of a Rain Barrel.

I spoke with a Landscape Architect friend who has his own hands on experience turning his traditional home landscape into a complete, sustainable water system utilizing Rain Barrels, Rain Gardens, Runnels, Bioswales, a Green Roof, Pervious Pavers, and a miniature urban Prairie. (Yes, I intend to emulate him). He suggested a runnel for my drainage system on this side of the house, which would allow me to eliminate the Rain Barrel and make the Runnel and Rain Garden my sole system there.

This would only be influenced by the ability of the front yard to hold a Rain Garden. It’s a small space with two trees that could be damaged by standing water. Watch for a development in the Rain Garden design as I tackle this decision.

Plans, and the planning planner who plans them.

I apologize for the delay (to myself and the curious few who were awaiting them). I am a planner, not a professional Planner, but one who plans, and plans and plans, enjoying the creative investigation, ongoing inquiry, and organizing that is part of making a 'plan'.

With delight, I now present my Site Analysis and Proposal ("Plan") for my current residential project.

Site Analysis

 Proposal

I have been fortunate to be able to access this space at will, because I live here. As a result, whenever I had a question about the landscape, I defaulted to making a trip outside to investigate and gather primary research. This may have delayed the design process but is also quite an opportunity and one of only a few cases when one can do this. What I mean is, while I am woo'ing my neighbors, I'll proceed with the construction of my landscape design, which is, of course, part of the woo'ing process.

A few points of note:
1. The evergreen tree. This is a very healthy White Pine that none would want to cut down except an urban gardener or one who wants more sun on the south side of her home. I happen to be both of these. On the downside, if we cut down the tree, we might have to pay money to have this done, and we might find the tree provided a nice service, such as a wind break for the back yard. All in all, the tree may stay.

I'm trying to avoid paying for this service (Hey, anyone want some really nice and straight white pine wood that's great for woodworking!?) and if we should find there is a wind issue, I'll be prepared to plant something else in it's place. You may have noticed, I have not provided a planting plan. A task for another day; a plan for another blog.

2. The Plum tree problem. I recently visited our metropolitan area's fair botanic garden and learned that plum trees need to be planted in pairs in order to procreate successfully. I'm guessing our plum formerly had a mate in a nearby yard, when it was producing fruit successfully, and is now a desperate young widow throwing pollen to the wind in hopeless efforts for offspring. I have provided two options for planting a 'pair' tree for this plum: another dwarf plum tree in the yard or, a wall-trained plum tree against the south side of the house. I just need to insure that the two trees are compatible species and that they will flower at the same time.

3. The vegetable garden beds. This is not my original design. I sketched one on paper while standing in the yard, then designed another in AutoCAD where I had measurements to follow. The temporary cold frame (see previous blog) in this location would fit almost exactly into the northwest box you see in the drawing (keep in mind, north is up in the drawing and because it isn't exact, I will likely redo either the cold frame or the drawing). As the days of this season progress, I'm learning about winter sun patterns from observing the sun and from a housemate who has lived here longer than I have. There may be a few small adjustments made to accommodate the best lighting for the permanent garden beds.

4. Trees in general. Some of the issues with the trees in the Site Analysis are being resolved by simply pruning them more regularly. This increases sun access on the site and improves the health of the tree. Additionally, I intend to research organic pest control solutions for next season's crops.

If I have left out anything, dear readers, please don't hesitate to contact me. Your inquiry is my opportunity.

Cold Frame, Hot Materials

Hot not as in 'stolen', rather used here to mean 'found', and free, and useful for framing, mass and insulation. Now that's totally cool. A cold frame is a structure that surrounds a garden bed, allows light to penetrate, has an insulating mass on the interior, and thus allows gardeners to extend their growing season.

I set out this past weekend to locate discarded items useful for making a cold frame to cover one of my vegetable garden beds. I have never before made a cold frame and while I have a complete landscape plan for the lot (see upcoming post), I wanted to get something built NOW.

Today, I made a very simple cold frame that can be constructed in a very short period of time (depending on how well-developed your project is when you begin).

I began with a garden bed that has already been in use, and even had small plants that I grew from seeds several weeks ago.  My ‘found’ materials include:

• 2 windows (approx. 3’ x 4’)
• 2 wooden boards (2” x 10” x 8')
• several bricks

Cold Frame Framing

In this picture you can see where I put the boards, which will contain the soil, and the bricks, which will absorb heat from the sun and slowly release it through the day. Currently, the boards are being held up by other bricks but will soon be held together by nails with shorter wooden boards on the ends.

The board on the south side (right) is nestled into a trench about 2 inches wide and 2 or 3 inches deep, spanning the length of the board. This places the board lower than the other and allows the windows to angle just a bit southward, towards the sun. (For my ideal cold frame, the framing will be designed to place the windows at an angle appropriate to Chicago’s winter solar position).


Cold Frame Finished

It took me about two hours to build this cold frame. While it was designed to be a temporary structure, it’s one that I know has worked for others. When I’m enjoying fresh spinach in January, I’ll let you know.

Second rain barrel, a fraction of the labor. And a surprise.

I set out last night, rather late in the day, to put together the second rain barrel. This one is in a different location and will have different duties, but I have lessons and advice from the first one and felt pretty good about my ability to do it more efficiently this time. The most significant difference to this set-up sequence was the upgrade from Anna-powered hack saw to the electricity-powered reciprocating saw, also known as a Sawzall.

Now, I've always been a tomboy and a do-it-myself-er (dissecting any animal, vegetable, mineral, or piece of technology I could get my hands on as a child), so if you've never used a power saw I suggest you get some help with this project. Be sure to use a blade for metal and not for wood.

See reciprocating saw here:

I had that downspout cut in no time! I neglected to mention with the first rain barrel that cutting the downspout with a hack saw took most of the labor time. In fact, it took most of my morning. Using the reciprocating saw took the cutting time down from hours to seconds. (Perhaps my next task should be to become a super hero, or to figure out how to power a reciprocating saw using a bicycle.)

With the new downspout came a new lesson: Be sure to check what is holding up your downspout before you cut it.
Both of my downspouts are connected to the house in three places: at the top, connected to the gutter and in two places it is held near the wall with a metal arm that reaches around it. The downspout is made up of a few pieces, some straight, some that curve to bring the downspout under the eave and close to the house.

With the first rain barrel on the north side, I got lucky. All the pieces of the downspout were securely held together so that when I cut the downspout and removed the bottom connection, the downspout still held together. When I cut the downspout on the south side of the house, the downspout swung away from the wall, pivoting at the top holding arm, and separated at the elbow from the top piece of downspout. I apologize for not having any pictures of this but I was a bit preoccupied at the time trying to keep a lot of metal from falling on top of me.

I'm typically 'afraid' of heights, but here's what I did:
I got up on this 'very tall ladder' (as Christopher Robin might say) and put it back together by hand. I secured it additionally with some tape, which seems to be working just fine.

Funny I should mention a robin. With the vigorous cutting of the reciprocating saw, the robin's nest that has been atop my downspout for as long as I've lived here was caused to fall to the ground. I scored a few broken and empty blue robin eggs and a very cool nest. Looking at it, I'm saddened to think how much effort went into making it and how much work it will be for the robin to make a new one. The nest is top heavy from the mud that lines the interior.

In the image below, you can see the shape of the nest made to fit this particular site. The circular hole is the bottom where the nest rested on top of the elbow of the downspout, the flat side was against the wall of the house. What you cannot see in this image are the sides that had hugged the curve of the downspout. A very impressive architectural piece.

Water-clogged, Day 2

I left the full rain barrel alone for a day to drain through the hose but alas, it has not. I debated whether to open the bottom valve to drain it, which would probably leave a large puddle of water around the barrel and could possibly even flood the basement. If I didn't empty it, it would definitely overflow in an overnight rain.

I decided to risk the flood and emptied the barrel by opening the bottom valve. Since I have yet to set up the secondary system it created the big puddle I predicted. Fortunately, we have surprisingly decent soil and it soaked in quickly. There was no flooding in the basement that night but it was inspiration to make a decision about the what the secondary system would be, buried drain tile or...?

Water-clogged

It has been raining all day today. I have been away from the house working on two other job sites on the north side, so I approached the rain barrel this evening with some anticipation. Would it be empty, would it be overflowing? Before I left this morning I opened the spigot attached to the soaker hose so that the barrel could slowly drain but I didn't have a plan for overflow. I wanted to test drainage through the soaker hose.

I put my hand on the top of the lid and gave it a nudge. It was heavy. Absolutely full. What had happened? I have checked all the other nozzles and the other end of the hose. I'm not sure what happened but my first job will be to check if there is silt clogging the system somewhere. The other thought is that the hose might just drain slower than I expected.

My Chicago-issue rain barrel came with a cap on each spigot and I had left them on to test the system. From now on, I will leave the top overflow spigot open. I did have the forethought to place that spigot over the drain tile entrance so any overflow would enter the secondary system.

First Rain

As it turns out, I chose a good day to set up my rain barrel. Shortly after completing construction, we had a gentle rain for less than an hour. I had closed all the spigots in the rain barrel so that I could measure how much rain we got. What a surprise!

Here you see the rain barrel is just over half full (half empty?). The picture is a little fuzzy but it best shows the level of water in the barrel and the rate at which it was filling.

It's important to note that this rain barrel is fed by less than half of my roof. In a separate blog I will show calculations but for now I can say, one barrel will not be enough to store all the rain water from an average Chicago rain.

Fortunately, I do not intend to store the water from this side of the house. The goal for this rain barrel is to control the water that comes onto the site and the rain barrel allows me to decide where it goes and when. By leaving the soaker hose attached and the spigot open, I can disperse the water over a greater area and send it towards the native plant garden at the front of my house. This way, the barrel is continuously emptying and, my hope is that it will never become full or overflow.

You are probably now wondering what I intend to do with the excess water in a typical or heavy rain. The rain barrel has been an easy solution for now. As I develop the plans for the entire site, I am exploring options. The most likely option presently is to bury the existing drain tile along its current course. This will take excess water flowing out of the top rain barrel spigot and put it immediately underground (a general water management goal). The water in the drain tile will behave much like the soaker hose but will put the water at the roots of plants or just below, encouraging them to grow deep. Of course, this all depends on how much digging I can handle to get the drain tile below ground - a labor-intensive option.

Set up a rain barrel in three easy steps.

I set up my first rain barrel today! After some days of hesitation about making a permanent cut in a metal downspout, I put on my work gear (rain coat and rain boots today), grabbed the tools on my list, and set out to get the job done. I'll admit I had been hesitant for a while. It seemed like 'a big deal' to set up a rain barrel. I had never done it before and being a bit of a perfectionist, I wanted to do it right. Well, here's what I did.

Above you see the existing conditions of the first rain barrel site. This is the north side of my house. The downspout normally leads into a drain tile that disperses the water. Here I set up about three inches of stone paver to put the rain barrel on (I ultimately used one paver, not two), adjacent to the existing downspout so that it can be reconnected during the winter months. The downspout will be cut to a shorter length making it the right height to lead water through a plastic elbow into the rain barrel.
Here's my gear:
Plastic elbow to reroute the water (with glove for scale):

Hack saw:

Soaker hose:

Step 1.
Set up all the equipment and draw a line where the downspout will be cut.


I set up all the equipment where it should be to measure where to cut the downspout. It's not in this picture but I did curve the plastic elbow and hold it up above the rain barrel to draw a pencil line where I should cut the downspout.

Step 2.
Cut the downspout with the hack saw.

As you can see in this picture, I had to switch to a different hack saw to complete the cut. Being unfamiliar with saw lingo, I can only say that the first saw was too narrow to cut through the entire width of the downspout.

Step 3.
Hook up the equipment!

Make sure your rain barrel base (I used one stone paver) is sturdy and mostly level. Put the rain barrel on top and center it. My pavers are a bit small for the base of my barrel so I have the back side a little over the edge but against the wall of the house. Fit the plastic elbow over the bottom of the downspout and curve it to lead to the top and center of the rain barrel. I have also attached a soaker hose to disperse the water and to lead it towards my garden.

Waterblogged

'Waterblogged' seems to be an appropriate title for the first project at hand: rerouting water at my home for the express purpose of preventing all that pesky flooding. I live in a traditional Chicago bungalow single-family style home. The house has some land around it on all sides though one side has a very thin strip of land, typical of urban living. This area seems to be the source of the water that floods the basement.

In dealing with this task, I've decided to do a complete overhaul of water handling on my lot. My hope is that by blogging about it I can share the trials, errors, lessons learned and design ideas that I encounter through this process.

I am a biologist and landscape architect by training and hope to continue this blog to include my other interests, urban food production and restored urban ecology.